Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Montana Trip Part II

This weekend we headed up to Montana to semi-officially move in to our new apartment.Packing for the trip was its own contradiction as we needed to pack what we would need for a 4 day weekend, but not pack what we might need for the next two weeks when we are at home packing the rest of our house. Friday night was spent in road construction/RV hell through most of WY. Then Saturday we woke up to this . . . not the best start to our weekend but it could have been worse:Here's a sneak peek I took last time of the outside of James' new office. It looks like a condo building to me but its a very nice complex from the outside complete with pond and everything.We then picked up the keys to our apartment. Here's the grand and boring tour. First, here's the pick I took last time we were there of the outside patio. The bulk of our apt. is to the left of it.Because of its proximity to parking, we use this entrance more often than not. However, the apt's front door opens onto a very nice grassy courtyard which will be nice when little man starts toddling around. Speaking of that (let's take a break from the tour) so I can show you what Matthew did all weekend:

That's right, he's still refusing to crawl "normally" but he has picked up mad skills with his army crawling.

Which means he can scoot over to June to do this:Or scoot over to me to steal this:

Okay, back to the tour. Inside here is our dining room and living room.And here's the hallway. Sky thinks it is awesome for fetch!Here's the master and master bath:Matthew's new room:His first nap went pretty well. James went to get him up and hollered for me to "come see this"

My first thought was that he was "real" crawling or had pulled himself up in the play pen . . . until James laughs and says "he looks like he got punched in the face!" The redness doesn't show up in the picture that well, but Matthew was asleep pretty soundly and woke with crazy blanket marks.The guest room and theoretically where I want the dogs to sleep since we don't have enough sq. footage for Sky's bed in the living room anymore.The guest bath.And Matthew definitely approves of his new tub.

The laundry room with

that's right . . .A DOOR! Maybe now all of Matthew's videos of the next year won't have loud laundry noises in the background!

And last but not least, our kitchen. It didn't really hit me until this weekend how much counter/cabinet space I am giving up. Holy moly. Thank goodness it has a dishwasher otherwise I might cry.One HUGE benefit of our complex is the on-site storage garages. Here's a pic taken from the patio of our car and our storage unit. This will house some of our stuff until we decide if we want to settle down and buy a house (or if we are later able to find a cost-effective larger house to rent that allows our four beasts).Another huge benefit of the area where our apartment is (and the town in general) is the plethora of walking paths and/or sidewalks. There is a great path around some wetlands across the street from us filled with lots of pretty Mallard pairs. The dogs are adjusting to being leash doggies again (or for June probably for the first time) pretty well. The prairie dogs are an added bit of excitement for them . . . and the giant ankle swallowing holes an bit of excitement for us. Our complex has a nice little playground right out our back door and if we follow the paths we can get to slightly bigger park with swings.Oh yeah, and did we mention the views!Most of the weekend we ran errands getting a feel for the town and picking up some amenities to make life work at the apartment. As we could only bring so many boxes with us to unpack, we spent a lot of time napping or playing with the dogs while Matthew napped. Sometimes we even napped with the dogs.On Monday we headed to the Museum of the Rockies. We picked up a family membership so I'll wait another day to bore you with my analysis of their exhibits/interpretation (which were fabulous but unique compared to many other museums we've been to due to the MSU affiliation). However, I will say that if the DaVinci exhibit comes anywhere near you, GO. This trip was a short one to check it out and take Matthew someplace that wasn't the house where he could stretch his legs and explore. He definitely found that:

(A gratuitously long video for the grandparents)

The museum has some impressive sculptures with skin/feathers etc. on one half and the opposite side is the skeletal or muscular structures.And with daddy in front of Big Mike.As I type we are headed across the desolate lands between Lovell, WY and whatever the next dinky town is (Greybull?). I've taken to writing our blog posts and editing the video/photos in the car and posting when we get home. (haha mom and dad, you thought I was procrastinating packing didn't you? :-) Though much of the land is pretty, there are only so many desolate buttes one can admire before needing something else to do : )